INTRODUCTION xxix 



ments met with in the steins and vessels of plants, leaves, hairs, fruits, &c. ; in the nerves, the umbihcal cord, the 

 cochlea of the ear, the ventricles of the mammahan heart, the stomach, bladder, uterus, &o. All these structures 

 are spiral because of original endowment and bias. 



An outstanding argument in favour of Design and Original Purpose is to be found in the give-and-take move- 

 ments or rhythms common alike to the inorganic and organic kingdoms. The physical universe gives to and takes 

 from plants and animals light, heat, moisture, &c., during the day and laight, and the seasons. The importance 

 of day and night and the seasons to plants and animals cannot be over-estimated. These changes ensure periods 

 of activity and periods of comparative repose ; periods for feeding and growing ; periods for reproducing, &c. If 

 there were no alternations of day and night and of the seasons, the whole economy of plants and animals would be 

 changed. They would cease to be healthy, and would probably cease to exist. 



Day and night and the seasons are due to well-known cosmic changes ; namely, to the rotation of the earth 

 on its axis every twenty-four hours, and to the earth revolving round the sun once in 365 days. The sun and light 

 and the earth, and the earth's atmosphere, were necessarily created before plants and animals. The latter are 

 parts of a designed whole. 



The unfailing recurrence of day and night and the seasons were all considered before plants and animals were 

 formed. The inorganic and organic kingdoms were clearly made for each other, and form complemental parts of 

 one great scheme. 



" Oldest of all the formations lonown to geologists, and representing perhaps the earliest rocks produced after 

 our earth had ceased to be a molten mass, are the hard, crystalhne, and much contorted rocks, named by the late 

 Sir W. E. Logan Laurentian, and which are largely developed in the northern parts of North America and Europe, 

 and in many other regions. ... In the lower part of this great system of rocks which, in some places at least, is 

 thirty thousand feet in thickness, we find no traces of the existence of any living thing on the earth. But in the 

 middle portion of the Laurentian, rocks are found which indicate that there were already land and water, and that 

 the waters and possibly the land were already tenanted by Uving beings. The great beds of limestone which exist 

 in this part of the system furnish one indication of this. . . . The cUmate and atmosphere of the Laurentian may 

 have been well adapted for the sustenance of vegetable life. We can scarcely doubt that the internal heat of the 

 earth still warmed the waters of the sea, and these warm waters must have diffused great quantities of mists and 

 vapours over the land, giving a moist and equable if not a very clear atmosphere. The vast quantities of carbon 

 dioxide afterwards sealed up in Hmestones and carbonaceous beds must also have still floated in the atmosphere and 

 must have suppUed abundance of the carbon, which constitutes the largest ingredient in vegetable tissues. Under 

 these circumstances the whole world must have resembled a damp, warm greenhouse, and plants loving such an 

 atmosphere could have grown luxuriantly. In these circumstances the lower forms of aquatic vegetation and those 

 that love damp, warm air and wet soil would have been at home. . . 



" It may fairly be assumed that in the present world, and in those geological periods with whose organic remains 

 we are more familiar than with those of the Laurentian, there is no other source of unoxidised carbon in rocks than 

 that furnished by organic matter, and that this has obtained its carbon in all cases, in the first instance, from the 

 deoxidation of carbonic acid by hving plants. . . 



" In the later geological formations the limestones are mostly organic — that is, they consist of accumulated 

 remains of shells, corals, and other hard parts of marine animals." 



Sir WiUiam Dawson, to whom I am indebted for the foregoing extracts, furnishes the annexed table indicating 

 the order in which plants and animals appeared on the earth.i 



It will be seen from the table on p. xxx that plants and animals become more complex with the advance of 

 time, there being what may be regarded as types of plants and animals, and an ascending series in both. Thus the 

 Bozoic age furnished Protogens and Algae in plants, and Protozoa in animals ; the Palaeozoic age, Acrogens and 

 Gymnosperms in plants, and Invertebrates, Amphibians, and Fishes in animals ; the Mesozoic age, Cycads and Pines 

 in plants, and Reptiles in animals ; the Kainozoic age, Angiosperms, Palms, &c., in plants, and Mammals and Man 



in animals. 



It also shows that creation, considered from the geologic standpoint, is a progressive work, that is, a work which 

 consists of stages and has been accomphshed at different times. This was a priori to be expected. The earth and 

 its climate had to be prepared for the advent of plants and animals, and the plants and animals were created in 

 succession and varied according to the condition of the earth and climate at particular periods. This accounts 

 for the prevalence of rank vegetation and huge animals at one period of the earth's history, and for a less luxuriant 

 vegetation and a more refined fauna at another. It also accounts for changes in the flora and fauna of different 

 regions of the earth at different times, due to vicissitudes of climate ; the remains of temperate and tropical plants 

 and animals being not unfrequently found in the same district. 



1 "The Geological History of Plants " {International Scicntilio Series, London, 1888, pp. 4 and 8). 



